Help with wifi thermostat

[micky]

Today I was going to settle on the Heat Pump but they're probably closed for Memorial Day. So I have one more day to think aobut it.

I'm probably going to get the Honeywell TH9320WF5003 Wi-Fi Touch Screen Programmable Thermostat

Since it's wifi I can use an old cell phone to control the heatpump and maybe the existing oil furnace from bed, mostly to turn it off on cool nights when I open the window. (There are more cool nights during hot weather than warm nights during cold weeather.)

But I still have some questions:

1) They are pushing Alexa with this. For only $40 plus the cost of running the wall wart 365/24. If I had that, is the advantage that I wouldn't have to turn on the cell phone and I could turn the furnace on and off (or adjust the temp) verbally, with 4 or 5 words?

You have to have an Alexa box for each room you plan to use it in, right?

What else do you folks do with Alexa if you have it, or its competitor?

Smart-speakers? Worth the extra money?

I'm not going to have it turn lights on and off. (When I first got here I put a ceiling fixture in my bedroom with a 2nd switch next to the bed. I first saw a switch next to the bed in a $1 hotel in Mexico and if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.)

I can always add Alexa on later, right.

Owners manual, it says the usual stuff. 3 entries for Wi-fi but nothing for Alexa:

2) Earlier I asked here about number of wires needed and I also googled and found lots of hits about needing a C-wire, but the drawings showed up to 8 or 9 wires in use. Unless I have special** AC or special** heat, 5 wires is enough, right? I'm using 4 wires now and there is one more wrapped around the other 4. **2-stage, whatever that is.

I know this is a question for the AC guy and I'll ask him too.

3) If I want to wait while the heat pump warms the house and not use the emerergency/auxiliary/backup heat, the oil furnace, what is that feature called. Do most thermostats have the abilitiy to insist on the heatpump? Reading this thermostat manual, it seems what I would do is answer No to the question Do you have backup heat? Then if I'm too cold I can change that to Yes. After which it will automatically switch over. Does that make sense? I can't make it dependant on the outside temperature???

4) Under Items frequently bought together, they show Honeywell THP2400A1027W White Coverplate Assembly $6.13

It's not a cover plate, it's a base plate. There is no chance that that's not already included, right? Because it has to match the thermostat. Very few people are replacing thermostats that use the same baseplate.

Amazon did this to me once and I fell for it: A cell phone ad didn't mention a cover but the Freq Bought Togteher listed one, and when it came in the mail, of course one was included. Now I have two. Eventually I'll use a second cell phone cover but I'll never need a second baseplate. Why do they do this?

[trader_4]

No experience with Alexa here.

Wires are

Power Heat stage 1 Heat stage 2 (only if you have two stages) AC stage 1 AC stage 2 (only if two stage AC) Aux heat (for heat pump) Fan Common (optional, so thermostat can power itself and with the Honeywell I have, it allows backlighting all the time. With batteries only it lights up when you touch it)

That's to do it right. If you have two stage, you can do it without the wire for that, by the eqpt making the call based on time. It starts out on low stage and if it runs longer than a certain time, eg 8 mins, then it goes to high. With the extra wire, the thermostat makes that call based on the right information, ie how big the temp delta is. Basically it winds up being it uses low stage to maintain, high when you kick the temp up or it's recovering from setback.

That all depends on the thermostat. I would not want a thermostat where you have to go into the setup programming menus to make it do what you want on a particular day. I've also seen quite a few people here with issues over the years with how a thermostat decides to call for aux heat, like they are willing to wait, but the thermostat has an algorithm where it puts comfort first and goes with aux. And I'm pretty sure some thermostats do have the option for an outside temp sensor to assist in the management.

It will come with the plate to mount it.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Alexa can be handy. I have an Echo Dot in the living room and the bedroom. My living room light is set to come on at 6PM and go off at midnight, but I can tell Alexa to turn it on or off at any time too.

In the bedroom I have a lamp on a plug and it is low watt bulb, good for watching TV. Before going to bed I tell Alexa to turn it on, in bed I tell Alexa to turn it off.

I like to listen to music when I go to bed. I also have SiriusXM in the car and it allows me to play it on the Echo Dot. I have a small speaker attached for better sound. Alexa, play SiriusXM channel 69 Alexa, stop in one hour

Like Google, you can ask it questions. Sports scores, weather, who was president in 1886, millions of other things.

You don't need it in every room but has to be in voice range to work.

[Jim Joyce]

Yes, Alexa can do that and a lot more. It's a general purpose digital assistant, sort of. You can ask it what time is it, you can tell it to remind you of something on a particular day and time, you can ask it the current or future weather, and you can ask it thousands of other things, including any Google search request that you can think of.

My neighbor has Alexa as part of her 'smart home' package and she and her teen kid love it. Likewise, I was given an Alexa and an Echo with my smart home kit, but my devices are still in their boxes a year later. Alexa has a great reputation for functionality, but a poor reputation for security and privacy.

Alexa is supposed to only listen for its trigger word, "Alexa", but people have been finding that it listens all the time, or at least whenever it wants to, regardless of whether its blue 'awake' light is on or not. Also, be aware that whatever it hears gets shipped to countries like Ukraine for analysis. Google says the data is anonymized and done to improve voice recognition.

That's a good rule of thumb. You may be able to yell at it from the next room, but it works best when there is clear line of sight and shorter distances. Its microphone is very sensitive, though, so if the house is quiet you can probably use it from the next room without major issues.

As part of my smart home kit, if I was using Alexa and it's little sister Echo, I could lock/unlock the front door and check its current status, open/close the garage doors and check their status, adjust the thermostat temp and change its operating mode, check various cameras on the security display screen (another part of the smart home system), turn various lights on/off and check their status, and more.

Personal decision. Not worth it to me.

I don't see why not.

<snip>

[Rod Speed]

Yeah, me too. In my case it’s the Philips Hue system that controls everything and movement sensors so I don’t have any physical switches at all. Its all completely automatic except for actually going to sleep which is done with a voice command to any of the 3 systems, siri, alexa or google.

I don’t watch TV in bed anymore, I prefer to play freecell Pro while watching any recorded TV or movies etc.

I don’t. I go to sleep almost instantly and have done for years now.

I prefer to listen to podcasts both at home and in the car and siri does a better job of playing the right one.

Alexa does multiple alarms much better than siri and I use that almost every night when cooking dinner. Not possible to completely automate that yet because different stuff goes into the digital air fryer at different times and some stuff needs to be turned over at half time so I often need 3 timers.

But it can be quite stupid at times like you cant get it to tell you some obvious stuff. Its too stupid to work out that you didn’t get the answer you want too.

But is better than google or siri in the sense that it does ask you if you had any trouble getting its attention quite often.

The voice range is excellent. Much better than siri.

One thing it cant currently do is when you have two dots in a big open plan house and have set a timer with one of them, it wont ring all the alarms when the timer goes off. Going to be interesting to see how long it takes them to fix that. Its been at least 6 months waiting so far.

[Rod Speed]

Bullshit, and its trivial to check if its doing that or not.

Ditto.

I couldn't care less.

[Rod Speed]

Yes, and do lots of other stuff with it too, like check the weather and the forecast etc.

Strictly not, it does listen for quite a distance but its more convenient to have more than one unless its largely open plan etc and even then its better to have one in the bedroom etc too.

Almost everything, from replacing clocks to replacing timers in the kitchen to controlling all lights and other switchable stuff to asking it what the current temperature is to the forecast and asking it what is currently open shops wise etc etc etc.

I don't bother with that myself.

Yep, much more convenient.

I have all those completely automated with the Philips Hue system and movement sensors but it can be handy to be able to control some lights and other controllable devices using alexa at time for unusual situations.